Last chance saloon for Lara Croft creator

SCi Entertainment, the troubled computer games company that owns Lara Croft creator Eidos, is axing a quarter of its workforce and going cap in hand to investors for £55m to stave off collapse.

Shares in Wimbledon-based SCi dropped 26% to just 39p, valuing it at only £34m. The share price fall is yet another setback for property entrepreneur Robert Tchenguiz, who is SCi's biggest shareholder.

Announcing a dramatic £81.4m half-year loss, compared with a loss of £17.9m in the previous year, chief executive Phil Rogers said SCi will abandon 14 of its game projects and reduce its workforce by 25%, to 800, as it focuses game development in just four major studios across the world.

Rogers, who took over last month following a board clearout that saw the ousting of founder and chief executive Jane Cavanagh and her husband, Bill Ennis, said the firm needs £55m more than its current £20m overdraft to keep going.

SCi is in talks with its bank, Lloyds TSB, about extending the loan but Rogers said an obvious option is a rights issue so "the right thing, right now, is to move quickly - and the right thing, right now, is to go and talk to our shareholders".

He plans to meet investors including Tchenguiz and Time Warner. A year ago the US media group bought a 10% stake in the business for 504p a share as part of a distribution deal. Since then SCi has warned on profits, delayed the release of new titles, including the latest Lara Croft adventure, and last month admitted that takeover talks had collapsed. Time Warner is unlikely to help bail out SCi as it is focused on its own restructuring efforts. Rogers said there may be other potential partners who can help the company.